Africa's Visual Vernacular by Uche Okpa-Iroha

Africa’s Visual Vernacular
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By Uche Okpa-Iroha
The practice of photography in
Africa is as old as its introduction
to the world by Francois
Arago in 1839 in France. Today
it has become the ‘go-to’ technology
through which the world
seeks to narrate and explain
events irrespective of the context.
Photography, then, in its infancy was
regarded with a fair dose of suspicion
with skeptics questioning its role and
motives.
As photography was being unveiled
in France, purveyors and colonists were
already on their way to the Continent
in search of ‘treasure.’ Inevitably the
camera became part of the lingua franca
and Africa, a stage where every other
form of expression that was antithetical
to its existence (be it cultural, economic,
political or social) was experimented.
The Continent had little or no say in
molding her image or visual narrative
during the colonial era. This narrative
has persisted for over 150 years and
has become embedded in the modern
psyche of western countries. It supports
the portrayal of the Continent as a land
in perpetual struggle. However this narrative
has in recent years been questioned
by African artists who in the mid-20 th
century emerged as proponents of subversion
to challenge the age-old western
accounts and its consequential parochial
representations of the Continent.
Modern and contemporary history
has often seen western writers present
Africa in a poor light and the context
skewed so as to titillate or entrench
already held misconceptions of the
Continent by the home audience.
Often topics relating to the Continent’s
political, social or cultural essence, are
highlighted with the usual stereotypical
reference to poverty, diseases or political
2 / ZEKE SPRING 2020
instability, thereby relegating innovative
agendas and policies by African states
from the mainstream of international
discourse. For decades, this image of
Africa has been held as the official narrative
that is accepted, especially in the
west. Despite the gains and successes
of the 54 countries that constitute this
richly endowed continent, a Euro-centric
vernacular has continuously coalesced
into clichés, representations and myths
often known as the ‘master’ narrative.
This essay is not aimed at highlighting
western parochialism towards Africa but
hopes to analyze the diverse narratives
of the Continent in relation to photography
and the role of the medium in
present day Africa.
Ideological Influence of
Colonialism
From the onset, African practitioners
have been keen observers of their
environment despite the unquestionable
influence of Europeans who
introduced photography at the same
time as colonialism. In as much as it
was a given that the colonists —comprising
of missionaries, merchants and
adventurers—profited from the creation
of these images, little or no questions
were asked if they reflected the reality
on the ground. From early to mid-19th
century, African photographers began to
collaborate with their European counterparts
in creating images that reflected
their vernacular. No doubt, most of them
were apprentices or worked directly to
the dictates of the colonial administrators
and missionaries. And despite the
ideological influence of colonialism and
its excessive control, the early African
photographers began to gradually
redefine the Continent’s new image
from a domestic perspective. I am of
the opinion that colonial tutelage and
its effect on early African practitioners
played a significant role in shaping the
visual myths that are perceptible today.
The focus during the 19th century fell
within the boundaries of anthropology
and ethnography — the earliest noticeable
language of photography in Africa
at the time.
In West Africa in the mid to the late
19th century, a group of young and
enterprising photographers led the
movement and produced some relevant
and outstanding works. Notable photographers
such as the African American
Augustus Washington, who was disenchanted
by black subjugation in America
in the 1850s, moved to Liberia and later
established studios in Sierra Leone, the
Gambia, and Senegal. 1 There was also
the very itinerant Francis Wilberforce
Joaque, who was educated in the
Grammar School in Freetown run by the
Church Missionary Society (CMS). 2 In the
1860s, he moved to Fernando Po (present
day Equatorial Guinea) where he
pioneered and practiced photography. 3
As the 19 th century drew to a close,
photography had already become an
important visual form of expression in
Africa. More entrepreneurs came into
the field in the central and the southern
parts of the Continent. New visual
dialects and provincialism began to
emanate from the defined borders of
anthropology and ethnography away
from the influence of the European perspective
which was still relevant in the
context of African photography at that
time. There were conscientious photographers
who also photographed events
independently in their regions. Today,
the works of Jonathan Adagogo Green